


the soul's disregard of space and time

by thermodynamicActivity



Series: The Collegestuck 'Verse [12]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Gen, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Police Brutality, Separation Anxiety
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-11
Updated: 2020-02-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:15:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22663090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thermodynamicActivity/pseuds/thermodynamicActivity
Summary: Sometimes, you question the values you've instilled in your son. You may have done better to emphasize the importance of self-preservation, alongside, or even as opposed to, the importance of integrity.Your name is Dolores Martineau, you are going silver at the temples, you will be forty-four on your next birthday, and Krishna keeps coming home in one piece, no matter what. Maybe, just maybe, that is enough.
Relationships: The Dolorosa & The Signless | The Sufferer
Series: The Collegestuck 'Verse [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/189914
Comments: 3
Kudos: 15





	the soul's disregard of space and time

**Author's Note:**

> Fic title taken from "[Immigrant Blues](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52210/immigrant-blues)", by Li-Young Lee.
> 
> I doubt anyone who reads this AU is unfamiliar with my human names for the ancestors, but just in case, and for first-time readers:  
> Dolores Martineau = The Dolorosa  
> Krishna Vandayar = The Signless  
> Cecily Clark-Perlman = (one version of) The Condesce

**_Dolores Martineau - April 2000_ **

Your son is not the sort of person to speak easily about his fears, except when he taps into them in order to write his speeches.

Heavily, you suppose that he got that kneejerk reticence from you.

Strong, steadfast Dolo, dependable Lola, never fazed, never fearful, occasionally angry but mostly just _concerned_. Adaptable, yet rooted in the ground, your dark face kind, but always alert.

If and when you had fears, you couched them in practical sounding advice.

Don’t walk past those houses on Bedford Avenue. _(You’ll get mugged for certain.)_

Always look clean-cut and somewhat staid. _(The police are less likely to pick on you than the boys around you in saggy jeans.)_

Don’t be too visibly contrarian in your views, and learn to pick your battles. _(Before you go and die on a hill, be sure it's a hill you're ready to die on.)_

Try to be home before it gets dark. _(The amount of violent nuts who would stab you increases exponentially after nightfall.)_

In retrospect, maybe you should have been more forthcoming with your concerns.

Maybe that is why he is the way he is now. You never showed your fear, and therefore, never taught Krishna how to properly be afraid.

Oh sure, he has his neuroses, his compulsions, the way he checks the locks on his doors six times before he leaves the house, and calls you eight times a day - you gave him the extension for your office after the receptionist for the guidance department got annoyed at you enough times. Put a megaphone in his hand, though, and he’s _fearless,_ a force to be reckoned with.

_"No justice, no peace!"_

You just wish it didn’t always have to be him leading these protests. That you had passed onto him, along with a sense of right and wrong, a greater sense of self-preservation.

You want to be proud of him. You _are_ proud of him.

More of you is terrified for him, though. He will be a target. He likely already is. He talks to you about all the things he’ll do when he hits the Teachers’ College, all the ways he wants to reform the educational system.

One part of you smiles, nods, and says, truthfully, _“I know you’ll succeed, my love. You've always been hardworking.”_

Another part of you worries that he may not live to see graduate school if he keeps trying to oppose every injustice he comes across. During the last demonstration he led, at Washington Square Park, a police officer cracked three of his ribs, kneeling on his back in order to handcuff him.

The cop insisted that his group had vandalized the fountain, refused to disperse, and resisted arrest. You refrained from punching the man, using every ounce of restraint you possessed.

What else can you do? What can you to ensure that this never happens to him again?

Can you tell Krishna not to fight for what he believes in? He simply would not listen.

He’d listen to you if you’d asked nearly anything else of him, but not that. Not that at all.

Despite your worries, you _know_ that the justice he clamors for is well-deserved. The system is broken. People die under this broken system every day, and if the powers that be won't do something about it, they need to be held accountable. They need to be called on their apathy.

The woman you were twenty years ago would have marched arm-in-arm with Krishna down University Place, without question.

The woman you are now hopes that Krishna learns to prioritize his life over his ideals.

Each day, you wait for him to start calling you. Even if it's distracting, it means that he lives to fight another day. He's alive enough to vent about how trying it is to debate Hegelianism with Katya, and how downright infuriating it is when Simon asks the both of them if anyone will actually give a shit about this argument in twenty years.

Simon may have a point _._

You would much rather listen to Krishna's rambling calls than the dark alternative: your phone gone permanently silent, your son gone permanently silent, unable to utter another word.

You push that thought from your mind, and try to focus on the task in front of you.

A few hours ago, Krishna informed you that Simon and Marisol have come down with some flu that swamped the younger girl's dorm a few weeks ago. Simon's gotten so ill that he didn't even attempt to get out of bed to teach his freshmen today.

You're aware that Simon cuts his regular classes at least once a week now that he's a second term senior, but you've never heard of him not showing up for a class that he has to _teach._

And you're perfectly cognizant of the fact that that your son and all his friends are adults. You know that they've likely reached that part of their young adulthood where they're trying to be as independent as they possibly can. You're not trying to interfere where you're unwanted.

But you also know - firsthand - how much fun it is to be a sick college student, and only five or so weeks away from finals, at that. College is difficult enough when you're fully well.

So you walk across your kitchen, over to the stove, where you'd set a large pot of _bouyon bef_ to simmer when you got home from work. It won't be ready for a while, but you still stir the pot to make sure everything cooks evenly, and that none of your ingredients start sticking to the bottom.

Your mother used to make this whenever you and Leandre got sick, rather than rush you to the doctor. A few years later - _not enough years later -_ you would do the same for your siblings, painstakingly trying to recreate every little detail of your mother's recipe. For your efforts, you'd be rewarded with Jean-Claude attempting to steal chunks of malanga out of the pot whenever you left the kitchen to have a cigarette.

You sigh.

You smile.

You turn up the stove a bit, and look at the clock. _7:20_.

At ten to eight, Krishna arrives, sneezing and gazing ruefully at the flowers in your front yard. He insists that it's only his allergies, that if it were Simon's flu, he would have caught it already. You lay the back of your hand across his forehead, and take his temperature before you're satisfied with this explanation.

"How are Simon and Marisol doing?" you ask. "Any better?"

He shrugs.

"Si, yes. Mari, uh, not really," he replies. "But she also insisted on studying for several hours this afternoon, since Katya wasn't around to put her back to bed. That probably didn't help."

Sounds about right. You shake your head. "Indeed, not."

He follows you into the house, carefully locking the doors behind him.

"Something smells really good," he says, the start of a smile tugging at his lips. "I can't tell from here whether it's chicken, or something else."

" _Bouyon bef_ , actually," you reply. "When you told me that Simon and Marisol were sick, I looked through the fridge, noticed I already had nearly all the ingredients, and decided to..."

You trail off, noticing that he's no longer standing right beside you. Back by the front door, you hear the latch turn again. Before you can investigate, Krishna returns, giving you an apologetic, but nervous little stare.

"Sorry, Mama. I was just..." He frowns. You put a hand on his shoulder and give it a gentle squeeze.

"I know. Don't apologize, you're fine."

Once he strides into the kitchen, he's quick to make himself useful, washing his hands and donning an apron without being asked to. He gazes at you expectantly. After a few seconds' thought, you set him to peeling and grating cassava.

"I haven't had cassava bread in a good long while," you say. "And it should go well with the stew, too."

Krishna chops the last of the peeled cassava into rough chunks, and takes the grater out of the cabinet.

"Sounds good to me."

You could do this faster, but you know the exercise will relax him. You watch him loosen up his stiff shoulders.

You lean back against the wall, and stretch your arms toward the ceiling. You stifle a yawn in your hand. You're not exactly tired, but you're beginning to wind down.

You two slip into an easy dialogue, neither lost for topics nor uncomfortably trying to shift the focus of the conversation. A discussion about how many of Krishna's acquaintances have contracted this flu turns into Krishna musing on how several of the underclassmen in the International Socialist Organization would do well to stop overworking themselves.

"There are many pressing issues that need to be addressed, so I understand their sense of urgency," he begins. "But some of these kids need to get it through their heads that their bodies require sleep."

Is that so? You quirk an eyebrow.

"They may just be emulating what they see in their leadership," you say to him, fairly. "You've never exactly been the poster child for a healthy work-life balance, _mon coeur.*_ Perhaps you and some of the older students should try to lead by example."

He nods.

"I know, I know."

His face falls. He gazes at his shoes, looking equal parts uncomfortable and contemplative. You decide not to press him, and change the subject accordingly.

"You mentioned this morning that you were working on a paper for your sociology class?" you ask. "How is that going?"

"Oh!" he exclaims. "That reminds me. I printed out my latest draft the in the lab before I came here. I thought that maybe you could read it and tell me what you think about the way I've structured my argument?"

Krishna will probably be asking you for input on his schoolwork until he no longer has any.

"Of course. It's no problem. Where is it?"

He stops grating cassava for long enough to gesture at the brown musette bag that he dropped next to your refrigerator.

"It's in there, in uh, the green folder, I believe."

You look through the bag until you find it, neatly typed up, but not yet stapled. You hold it up to him.

"Is this it?"

"Yes, Mama."

He tells you that you can write on it all you want, and he should have pens in his bag if you need one. Then, he apologizes for not asking earlier about how _your_ day went.

You wave the apology off. He needn't be sorry. Your days aren't particularly interesting, and it's not as if you'd want to discuss your students' problems with him in any detail. It would be a breach and a betrayal of their privacy.

You catch a careless grammatical error in the fourth sentence of his introduction and circle it, scanning his paper for such issues while you talk about what you did today.

Few students came to see you, even though it's now the time of year when all the seniors start getting admission decisions from their colleges.

For hours on end, all you really did was play solitaire, and then briefly console one boy who had been rejected from UC Berkeley. Cecily popped in sometime during eighth period, ostensibly to request data regarding Ivy League acceptances, but more likely to avail herself of a handful of the Jolly Ranchers in the bowl on your desk.

At that point, Krishna smiles knowingly, and suggests that Cecily simply wanted to see _you._

That leaves you blushing and mildly flustered, but you so like it when he has that easy smile - he smiled so much when he was a child, and then the world gave him too many reasons to grow out of that - that you cannot help but embrace him.

Tightly. Too tightly, maybe.

You think of his last run-in with law enforcement, the way he pressed his hand to his injured ribs, and you feel the sting of unshed tears prick the area behind your eyes.

You let him go.

 _“Qu’est-ce qui ne va pas?”_ he asks. You don't miss how he lapses into French whenever he's trying to reassure you.

When you don't answer him, he presses a kiss to your forehead, which must be slightly damp from sweat.

He peers at you, carefully. _"Est-ce que ça va?"_

Oh, and how he speaks French. Not quite like a second language, and his accent is rather atrocious, but he isn't unconfident for it. He certainly spent enough time around you to pick the language up. Still, it continues to strike you exactly how much he's always _cared_ about what you have to say, and how you say it.

What a sweet boy.

“Nothing’s wrong,” you reply, in French, giving him a half smile you allow to reach your eyes.

Krishna grins at you, and oh, look at him, when did he get so tall?

Once upon a time, you could balance him on your hip.

_Not long ago._

_So many years ago._

Is this how aging feels? Wrinkles here, grey there, and the realization that an entire lifetime has passed you in what now feels like the blink of an eye?

_Look at your son. Look at him there._

“I missed cooking with you, Mama,” he says. "I cook with Katya, Si, and Marisol all the time, but it's not the same. In a conspiratorial stage whisper, he goes on, "None of them can prepare cassava to save their lives, for one."

You snort.

His arms come up to embrace you again.

The very arms that shook the first time he rode a bicycle. The same hands he uses to make the signs he and Katya carry at demonstrations.

You blink rapidly, momentarily worried that you'll be seized with the urge to cry again, and then the world rights itself on its axis.

You step into your son's embrace.

“I know,” you reply, reaching up - you have to reach up, he's so tall, now, compared to you - to cup his face, and to pluck a piece of shredded cassava from his Afro. “I've missed this too _."_

**Author's Note:**

>  _"Mon coeur"_ means "My heart", _“Qu’est-ce qui ne va pas?”_ means _"What's wrong?",_ and _"Est-ce que ça va?"_ means _" Are you okay?"_ , at least according to Google Translate. 
> 
> If there is a better way to word these phrases, or if I've made any errors, I'd be super grateful if any French-speaking readers let me know!


End file.
